"Please! we settled that."
"It will never be settled till you are my wife."
"Listen!" said Eileen, dramatically. "In a few minutes your mother and
father will be seated at dinner. Your mother will have told your father
I've left the house in disgrace. Don't interrupt. Would you be prepared
to walk in upon them with me on your arm and to say, 'Mother, father,
Miss O'Keeffe has done me the honour of consenting to be my wife'?"
With her warm hand still in his, how could he hesitate? "Oh, Eileen, if
you'd only let me!"
The imagination of the tableau was only less tempting to Eileen. It was
procurable--she had only to move her little finger, or rather not to move
it. But the very facility of production lessened the tableau's
temptingness. The triumph was complete without the vulgar actuality.
"I can't," she said, withdrawing her hand. "But you are a good fellow.
Good-by." She moved towards the garden steps. He was incredulous of the
utter end. "I shall write to you," he said.
"This is a short cut," she murmured, descending. As her feet touched the
grass she smiled. How they had both tried to stop her, mother and son!
She hurried through the shrubbery, and by a side gate was out on the old
wagon road. More slowly, but still at a good pace, she descended towards
the Black Hole, now beginning to twinkle and glimmer with lights, and far
less grimy and prosaic than in the crude day.
X
While packing her big box, she had decided to try to lodge that night
with a programme-girl she had got to know at the Theatre Royal, and the
motive that set her pace was the desire to find her before she had
started for the theatre.
The girl usually hovered about Mrs. Maper's box. Once Eileen had asked
her why she wasn't in evidence the week before. "Lord, miss," she said,
"didn't you recognise me on the stage?"
Eileen thus discovered that the girl sometimes figured as a super, when
travelling companies came with sensational pieces, relying upon local
talent, hastily drilled, for the crowds. Mary became a Greek slave, or a
Billingsgate fishwife, with amusing unexpectedness.
Eileen's next discovery about the girl was that she supported a paralysed
mother, though the bed-ridden creature on inspection proved to be more
cheerful than the visitors she depressed. Mr. Maper had sent her grapes
from his hothouse only a few days before, and in taking them to the
little house Eileen had noticed a "Bedroom to Let."
To her relief, when she reached the bleak street, she could see that
though the blind was down, the bill was still in the window. Her spirits
bubbled up again. Ere she could knock at the door, the programme-girl
bounced through it, hatted and cloaked for the theatre.
"Miss O'Keeffe!" She almost staggered backward. Eileen's face worked
tragically in the gloom.
"There are villains after me!" Eileen gasped. "Take this bag, it contains
the family jewels. That bedroom of yours, it is still to let?"
"Yes, miss."
"I take it for to-night, perhaps for ever. The avenger is on my
footsteps. The law may follow me, but I shall defy its myrmidons in my
trackless eyrie."
"Oh, Miss O'Keeffe! You frighten me. I shouldn't like to have all these
jewels in my house, and with my mother tied to her bed."
Eileen burst into a laugh. "Oh, miss!" she said, mimicking the
programme-girl. "Didn't you recognise me on the stage?"
"Mary Murchison!" gasped the programme-girl. "Oh, Miss O'Keeffe, how
wonderful! You nearly made my heart stop--"
"I am sorry, but I do want to take your bedroom. I've left Mrs. Maper,
and you are not to ask any questions."
"I haven't time, I'm late already. Fortunately, I only come on in the
second act."
"That's nice; put my bag in and I'll come to the theatre with you." The
thought was impromptu, an evening with a bed-ridden woman was not
exhilarating at such a crisis.
"You ought to be an actress yourself," the programme-girl remarked
admiringly on the way.
Eileen shuddered. "No, thank you. Scream the same thing night after
night--like a parrot with not even one's own words--I should die of
monotony."
"Oh, it isn't at all monotonous. It's a different audience every night,
and even the laughs come in different places. My parts have mostly been
thinking parts--to-night I'm a prince without a word--but still it's
fun."
"But how can you bear strange men staring at you?"
"One gets used to it. The first time they put me in tights I blushed all
through the piece, but they had painted me so thick it wasn't visible."
"In short, you blushed unseen."
Eileen wished to go to the pit, but her new friend would not hear of her
not occupying her habitual box, since she knew that the management would
be glad to have it occupied if it were empty. This proved to be the case,
and put the seal upon Eileen's enjoyment of the situation. To spend her
evening in Mrs. Maper's box was indeed a climax.
She borrowed theatre-paper and scribbled a note to her ex-employer,
giving the address for her trunk. An orange and some biscuits sufficed
for her dinner.
Not till she was in her little bedroom, surrounded by pious texts, did
she break down in tears.